Oddments encore

Portraits of paint

Recent photos of "residuals", aka, dried acrylic paint

I don’t know why, but the physical remnants of making, like paint splatter, wood shavings, left over bits of metal from sculpture, to name a few items, have held endless fascination for me. In one of my older studios, I allowed the accumulation of paint drips on one of my painting walls to accumulate so densely that it became a serious deterrent to being able to properly see the work. Was it cool looking? Yeah, all the way, but trying to “see” what I was making became nearly impossible after a while and I set about finally repainting the wall.

The continual use of acrylic paint over the years has left me with plenty of remnants of painting, some of which I’ve named “oddments” (a remnant or part of something, typically left over from a larger piece or set). Back in 2008, I’d accumulated quite a few oddments of acrylic colors that had dried in storage jars for paint. I pulled them free from the jars or other containers and had an instant idea: why not use them as photographic subjects? And that’s what I did. Some of those old photos live on Flickr.

Flash forward 16 years and three studio moves later, I have most of the old oddments and have accumulated a lot more. Every year since 2008, I kept uttering that infamous saying, you know the one: “I’m going to do something with them one day”

*cringe*

Of course, one day turned into sixteen years, but who’s counting. Anyway, last week, I was hit with the latest wave of, “I should do something with that dried paint that’s been gathering dust…” because I wasn’t getting anywhere with another idea for an upcoming show, so I thought I’d switch things up a bit, return to the oddment photo idea and see if I can figure out a new direction to push the idea. The results are mixed but I didn’t expect anything more, it’s been a while and I still need to dust off the cobwebs. All I wanted to do was to see what could be different now as opposed to then. I kept it simple and just positioned a few bits on a black fabric, using a mix of the overhead lights and the natural light from the studio windows. I think of some of them as “portraits” of a sort, attempting to elevate these cast off remnants above their station of being.

I made a good bunch of photos, but the ones here are some of my favorites. I only used my cell phone camera (iPhone 11)for these. Having made these, I’ve come up with other scenarios that might be of interest to pursue. Before I get to the next round of these, I’ll have to finish up some paintings for an upcoming show, so this will have to sit on the side until I have time to return to them in another few years, maybe?

Behind the scenes with the set up I had last week.